


i wanna take you (for all that you got)

by futuredescending



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: M/M, POV Multiple, heist!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-23 23:33:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12000261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futuredescending/pseuds/futuredescending
Summary: “Last night, a painting was stolen from the gallery at which you’re employed. Records indicate your security card was used during the time of the theft, and your fingerprints were found all over the scene. Suffice to say, Mr Unwin, you’ve just become our primary suspect.”





	1. extraordinarily bad luck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Damned_Writers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damned_Writers/gifts).



“It’s very simple, Mr Hart,” Chester King says in that condescending manner he has as he looks down his age-enlarged nose at Harry. “All I’m asking is that you to take back what is already mine. That insolent Ms Morton refuses to give me back my own Waterhouse. She claims we signed a binding contract to lend the painting out to the Morton Gallery for a defined period of time. However, I recently made contact with a very well-to-do party who expressed a great interest in purchasing this painting from me and was willing to pay me a very hefty sum. Now, when put like that, why can’t the owner of his own damn painting be able to sell it when he so pleases?”

King smiles conspiratorially, a sneering curl of his lips, like he expects Harry to agree with him by default. Unfortunately, it’s in Harry’s best interests to do just that. It’s just another job, after all. If he started basing his business decisions on the moral character of his clients now, he’d soon find himself with very little business left.

So, Harry paints a bland non-committal smile across his lips and folds his hands just beneath his chin, finger curled over his mouth, leaning forward attentively. “Quite right, Mr King. Why, it could hardly be called stealing at all, put like that.”

King brightens. “Exactly! And if it just so happens I can collect the insurance payout on top of what the painting will fetch me...well, let’s just call it payment for all the trouble I’ve had to go through to see to this matter personally.”

“And teaching that greedy Ms Morton a lesson will no doubt be the cherry on top,” Harry concludes.

King’s eyes gleam in delight. “You’re a very astute man, Hart.” He sets down his tumbler of scotch (and if there is one positive thing to be said for the man, it’s that he has very good taste in libations). “In fact, there’s a second part to this job I would like to confer onto you.”

Though Harry privately dreads what is about to unfold, somehow instinctively knowing what he’s about to hear will leave a bitter taste in his mouth, he nods and offers up an encouraging and even jovial, “I’m listening.”

“After you steal back my painting, I’d like for you to make sure the only person who will be blamed for the incident is a young janitor named Gary Unwin. He's employed at the gallery, some charity case Ms Morton took pity upon. I believe he goes by the name, _Eggsy_.” The nickname is spat out in particular distaste. 

“And what grievance have you against some common janitor?” Harry asks.

“That little chav already has a criminal record as long as my arm,” King sneers. “He has no place being within six feet of _my_ works, and Ms Morton has made an unforgivably irresponsible decision in bringing him on in the first place. It wouldn’t be so far-fetched to blame him for the theft. It was probably only a matter of time anyway.”

“Stealing a painting and framing someone are rather two different skill sets,” Harry says mildly. “Fortunately for you, I’m rather adept at both. That being said, I consider them two separate jobs, and I charge accordingly.”

From the downward turn of his mouth, Harry can see King does not especially appreciate this response, and just when Harry thinks he’ll be able to walk out of here with his soul perhaps slightly less tarnished if not exactly snow white, King surprises him. “I’m willing to pay extra. Just see that it gets done. I want my painting back, Ms Morton’s little gallery to be discredited, and for that Unwin boy to be buried. Have we got ourselves a deal, Mr Hart?”

Harry grimaces. He’s never much liked King. The man is pompous, snide, and is in possession of a callous streak a mile wide. And while Harry can’t, by any means, claim to be a saint, he likes to think there are still some lines he won’t cross.

That is, of course, until today.

Because what choice does Harry have in the end? Loathsome as King is, he’s powerful, well connected, and has a vast number or resources at his disposal. He could very easily make things difficult for Harry if he so chose.

And Harry has a reputation to uphold.

So he swallows his misgivings with practiced ease and raises his glass to toast the beginnings of their lucrative new relationship. “Yes, Mr King. I believe we do.”

 

***

 

The hours are long, the work ain’t exactly pleasant, and the pay ain’t all that great either, but Eggsy Unwin will always be grateful to Roxy Morton for giving him the job in the first place. There aren’t many opportunities for people like him, and he’s got a mum and baby sister to feed at home, because Dean sure as shit ain't doing it.

And they make do, they do. Bills get paid, rent gets in on time, in full. The thing about a proper job means Eggsy’s got himself a real bank account and everything. He’s on the books, legal through and through, gets to see how little he ends up with after taxes and all like the next hard-working chap. Roxy even helped set him up with autopay so Dean can’t even touch Eggsy’s hard-earned dosh and piss it all away on drink.

And even after the bills, rent, food, and Daisy’s supplies, Eggsy manages to have a little leftover for a round at the pub with the lads on his rare nights off, which is just as well, as he don't need to piss away all his money either. All in all, this working business ain’t so bad.

Tonight, however, Eggsy finds himself on his own at their local. Jamal’s on a date. Ryan’s working a double at McDonald’s. Pub’s only half-full, quietly sleepy on a weeknight with the telly going at low volume in the corner. He just wants a pint or two, maybe bum a fag off someone, maybe head down to see Ryan after close and keep him company while he cleans up, probably get some free food while he’s at it.

Couple hours to kill until that happens, though. The bartop’s still wet from its cursory wipedown, clammy and warm against his fist. Eggsy is trying to catch the barmaid’s eye when he ends up distracted by the tall, elegant shape of a posh older bloke slotting in so close beside him despite the wide berth available on either side, Eggsy can feel the warmth of his body.

It’s reflex to give him the once over. Eggsy can’t help it. Some people got their own kind of gravity, playing at some wavelength perfectly attuned to his own senses. Too tempting to follow the pinstripe of the bloke's expensive as fuck suit up his long, long limbs, inwards to his trim waist, expanding outwards to his broad chest and shoulders, picking back up the stark lines of his glasses, fading out into the subtle threads of grey in his neatly-parted hair. Once Eggsy sees and hears and feels the presence of him, he can’t _not_.

When he breathes in, Eggsy can smell him: something light and earthy, just faint enough for him to subconsciously lean in to inhale more.

Then the man looks directly at Eggsy, and Eggsy can’t look away.

“Good evening,” the man says to him, voice surprisingly deep, corners of his mouth turned up in a small, almost secretive smile. Brown eyes. Nothing special about them, except maybe everything. They shine. No, they _burn_ , all unambiguous intent.

Eggsy can almost hear it, a match being struck, a small lick of flame sucking up all the oxygen in the vicinity, lighting up his awareness. Heat rises to the surface of his cheeks, prickling his skin, balling up low in his stomach.

Younger, more reckless him would have gone for it without hesitation, desperately trying to obliterate yesterday and secretly hoping there would be no tomorrow.

Except now, he’s got people and responsibilities to answer to. He don’t want to mess that up. Feels too good to throw it all away on old habits.

His own return smile is barely a twitch, polite and distant. “Evening.” Barmaid’s busy drying glasses, back still turned, which, come the fuck on.

“What is it you like most here?” the man asks.

Not two heartbeats after vowing to keep his gaze straight ahead, Eggsy eyes him again. Figures someone like him ain’t exactly a fixture round these parts. “Dunno.” He shrugs. “They got a nice lager. Usually just get that.”

“Can I buy you your next drink?”

His lips are already parting to say _no thanks, mate_ , but the words stick in his throat, maybe blocked by the furiously beating heart now lodged in it. Eggsy thinks about tonight’s agenda. Dangerously imagines revising it to include less stale, lukewarm cheeseburgers and more trying to figure out how much of this bloke's dick he can swallow down in one go.

The man patiently waits.

Nothing wrong with just a drink, Eggsy tells himself. Save himself some money in exchange for spending some time chatting with a handsome gent, why the fuck not? He’s wasted his time doing far worse. “Yeah, alright.”

When the barmaid finally wanders over, the bloke smoothly orders for the both of them: lager and a fucking Guinness. But Eggsy misses the opportunity to share a look with her when his newly-met benefactor almost idly circles long fingers around Eggsy’s wrist, thumb to his pulse, lightly stroking over the thin stretch of sensitive vein-marbled skin. His whole arm tingles. Every nerve lights up like Christmas. Eggsy forgets how to breathe, attention tunnelling to one small pinpoint of heat on his wrist.

Old habits.

It’s why he can’t say he’s surprised, later, when Harry pushes him up against the door to his own shitty flat and swallows down his surprised grunt by licking into his mouth with a, frankly, fucking hot level of aggression, faint traces of milky wheat on his tongue, all the while palming Eggsy through his jeans to coax a constant stream of smothered moans and frustrated curses from his lips.

“Shh, gotta be quiet,” Eggsy warns before they sneak across the living room in the dark, navigating a treacherous minefield of Daisy’s toys and Dean’s stacks of ill-gained electronics, slipping into Eggsy’s room while barely remembering not to slam the door.

After that, it’s all-consuming kisses in the dark and piecemeal divestment of clothes. More so for Harry, who’s got on layers and layers, all buttoned and tied up everywhere that take far too long to undo with shaking fingers and the constant distraction that is Harry's lips and proprietary hands.

Eggsy assumes Harry wants him to turn around and get on all fours because that’s how these encounters tend to go, but Harry just presses Eggsy’s back against the headboard and swings a long leg over his hips, letting Eggsy watch him finger himself open with wet, slicked up fingers before lining up and sinking slowly down onto Eggsy’s cock.

Harry moves with torturous, achingly slow precision up and down on Eggsy's cock, making the springs in the bed creak like old joints. Eggsy can feel every grinding inch and hot pulsing squeeze of Harry’s hot body around him, can only see dim glimpses of his lithe muscles shifting beneath pale skin by the streetlamps bleeding in through the window, Harry’s abdominals tightening and flexing. The sweat collects between their thighs. Harry’s prick drags a long wet smeary line against his far softer stomach.

Harry doesn’t speak, but every cinched off moan joins Eggsy’s inhibited pant and furtive rhythmic groan of the bed springs, sounding all the more filthy for it. Worse still is when Harry leans down and kisses him again, open mouthed and clumsy, more a collision of tongue and teeth, exhaling noisily through his nose.

He squeezes Harry’s hips tight enough to press a row of indentations into his skin, trying to shove himself deeper into Harry’s arse, trying to fuck up faster, harder. Probably gonna leave bruises, but Eggsy doesn’t know how else to deal with this mounting pressure, this thing building up inside of him to the point of pain.

He pulls away from Harry’s lips, gasping. “Harry,” he chokes out, barely louder than a breath. “Please. Come on. I need—I’ve gotta….”

Harry pauses with the head of Eggsy’s cock just barely still inside him, trembling, face bowed into his shoulder. “Come on then.”

Eggsy grips both his hips and fucks up into him in fast, short jabs that punch Harry’s breath out in sharp groans against his skin. Harry’s fingers dig into Eggsy’s shoulder as he pushes back, meeting Eggsy’s thrusts stroke for stroke, pushing his cock through his own tight fist.

The pace becomes something brutal, animalistic, every furious slap of skin and harsh breath punctuated by a breathless grunt when Eggsy fucks in especially hard or Harry squeezes around him. Eggsy even forgets about the need to be quiet in his pursuit of completion, but finally he can feel his climax pooling in his groin. His skin feels like it's expanding far and wide until he’s fucking into Harry as hard as he can in short, jerking motions, finally coming deep inside him with something like a choked off whine that he holds back only by gritting his teeth. He's barely cognisant of the wet spurts of come splattering his stomach when Harry brings himself off soon after.

Harry slumps against him, a blanket of too long limbs, clammy skin, and a numbing weight on his legs. Eggsy finds his body having a mind of its own, palms stroking up and down Harry's flanks, nose turned into Harry's sweat-moistened hair, tongue tasting the salt of his shoulder.

“You gonna go?” Eggsy asks when they’ve haphazardly cleaned up some: condoms binned, tissues handed out all around, then balled up and tossed onto the nightstand to be dealt with later.

“I’d like to stay if you’ll let me.”

Normally, Eggsy wouldn’t. Aside from the risk of exposure—because, fucking hell, bringing home a bloke to shag under the same roof as Dean is just asking for trouble—he ain’t usually interested in much more than getting off, rolling over, and going to bed.

Harry sits at the edge of the bed, perfectly at ease without a stitch on, looking at Eggsy with such an open, honest expression that's somehow more transparent than his nudity. The darkness makes a pretty picture of his body, which by all rights ought not be as fit as it is, shaped by artistic ideal musculature carved out by tasteful shadows. Eggsy can barely make out the shape of his now lax cock nestled among dark, coarse curls, and already the impulse is there to want to taste it.

Ain’t many people Eggsy’s had who looked this good. Ain’t many people who looked back at him with something like tenderness once they were done either.

Too embarrassed to say anything, Eggsy just crawls under the covers and scoots to the far side of the bed in wordless invitation.

After a moment, Harry is a warm body against his back, one arm circling his waist, broad palm spread flat against Eggsy’s stomach, legs slipped in between his. “Is this alright?”

It’s a tight fit, small as Eggsy’s bed is, but there’s something comforting about the way Harry is utterly wrapped around him. “Yeah. It’s nice.”

“I’ll be gone before the rest of your family wakes up. Just...like this, for a few hours. It would be….”

“I get it,” Eggsy whispers again. He’s allowed to enjoy it now too.

He tries to sleep, even starts to drift off for a bit, but never quite gets there. Too aware of the wall of heat ensconcing him, of Harry’s chest lightly expanding and contracting against his shoulder blades, soft, cool tickles of breath at his neck. There’s a thrumming current of energy that runs through Harry’s bodies when he’s awake. Eggsy can sense he’s not sleeping either.

So he asks, “What brought you to out tonight? You like playing tourist, Harry?”

He can practically sense Harry's internal battle over feigning sleep and choosing to answer for several moments. “I don’t know,” Harry eventually says. “I was out for an evening walk. It’s the first place that jumped out at me.”

“Sounds like a long walk from where you live.”

“Not as long as you’d think.”

Suddenly Eggsy wishes he could see Harry’s face, so he shifts a bit, rolling onto his other side until Harry’s arm resettles around him and he can look Harry in the eye. They didn’t much look at each other while they fucked, but now Eggsy gets his eyeful. Harry looks younger without his glasses. Softer eyed, more vulnerable. “You usually pick up young boys in pubs?” he teases.

Harry seems happy enough to play along. “Only if they’re as irresistible as you.”

“Not too many of those about. Reckon it must have been a long dry spell.” Eggsy grins.

“Oh, it was,” Harry says, smiling back until the corners of his eyes crinkle up, and even in the darkness, Eggsy can catch the gleam of mirth in them.

He's so fucking attractive that Eggsy can't help running another hand down his chest, petting him. “Do you always stay and spoon with your one night stands?”

“No,” Harry says, and just when Eggsy thinks he’s gonna leave it at that: “Just you.”

Eggsy frowns. “Why?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” Harry shoots back, arching a brow.

Eggsy shrugs. “Just curious. Don’t often have someone so refined in my bed. It’s practically like having tea with the queen.”

Harry does this little aborted snort of surprised laughter, revealing all his slightly crooked teeth, and it’s the most fascinating thing Eggsy has ever seen. “I think you may be overstating the case.”

“Dunno. Think Lizzie got the same stamina as you?”

“Cheeky.”

“But seriously.”

“In all seriousness, Lizzie might just surprise you.”

“Why me?” Eggsy insists, slapping Harry lightly on the part of his chest he'd so recently fondled. It doesn’t even jiggle, there ain’t a spare ounce of fat on the man.

“When I saw you, I knew you were everything I wanted,” Harry says simply, meeting his eyes unflinchingly.

Eggsy’s mouth open and closes, at a loss for an adequate response until he finally settles on, “You’re a bit weird, you know that?”

But Harry just keeps looking back at him with that earnestly sincere gaze, uncomfortably soul-penetrating and fire-starting in one. When he leans in, Eggsy can’t help but lean in too until they breathe each other’s air.

Harry’s eyes are so dark when he reaches up and caresses Eggsy’s cheek with something dangerously approaching reverence.

“ _Eggsy._ ”

When Eggsy wakes up a few hours later in the early morning hovering on the edge of his bed, he feels the absence keenly. He spends the morning that way, wavering precariously between fond remembrance, incredulity, and regret.

Harry’s gone by the next morning, as promised.

All his fine, tailored clothes have vanished from the floor. Were it not for the indentation in the pillows, the stale smell of sex and the much more pleasant hints of Harry’s cologne still faint on the sheets, Eggsy could have thought Harry was never there at all.

In the coming days, he finds himself going through the motions of his life in a sort of fog. Daisy shrieks and cries from teething, Dean glowers and spews insults at him with the occasional intermittent slap, someone makes a disgusting mess in one of the toilets at the gallery, the chip and pin machine refuses to work for him at the supermarket.

At night, Eggsy stares at his stained ceiling and tries to imagine Harry beside him, solid and warm. He imagines he can feel Harry’s arm secure around his middle, his heart drumming into Eggsy’s arm, breaths steadily rolling across his throat like the slow high tide.

It goes like this, day in and day out, bleeding together until he re-calibrates back to normal again. He comes back to himself like gradually waking from an already fading dream, and the harsh details of reality solidify in all their shitty techniccolour. Then it's a different kind of drudgery, one he's in the trenches of, eyes to the ground.

At least it goes like that until the morning he tries to have a bit of a lie in after a late night at the club. He's dragged back to consciousness kicking and screaming by his own mum shaking him frantically awake. When he manages to pry open his eyes, she's staring at him in a mixture of confusion and fear. “Eggsy, there’s coppers at the door for you.”

In a burst of adrenaline, Eggsy quickly throws on whatever clothes he can grab before rushing to the front door, ready to tell his mum to grab the baby and run if shit goes tits up, wondering if one of Dean’s lot has gone and blamed him for something, those fucking bastards.

There’s a plainclothes copper with the most perfectly bland face Eggsy’s ever seen standing at the door. He’s accompanied by two bobbies, which seems like a bit much. Thank God Dean don’t seem to be around to witness this. He'd just make things worse. “What’s going on?”

“Gary Unwin?” the man inquires, though from the way he’s looking at Eggsy, he knows exactly who he’s talking to.

Eggsy stares him down. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Detective Inspector Morton,” he says, and Eggsy only has a moment to ponder the familiarity of that name before DI Morton goes on, every word instilling more and more dread, “Last night, a painting was stolen from the gallery at which you’re employed. Records indicate your security card was used during the time of the theft, a time in which you were not scheduled to work. Your fingerprints were found all over the scene. Suffice to say, Mr Unwin, you’ve just become our primary suspect.”

 

***

 

Roxy Morton presses two fingers to her temple in a vain attempt to alleviate the headache that took up residence there ever since this whole thing began. The fluorescent lights in the police station aren’t helping. Neither is the fifth cup of terrible weak tea she’s drinking out of a paper cup.

On the wrong side of the two-way mirror, Eggsy sits at a bolted-down, steel table. He’s glaring down at his hands, jaw set in an angry line, stubbornly silent despite the calm, steady line of inquiry her brother patiently delivers, as he has been for several hours of being made to wait and stew, and then two rounds of questioning now by two different detectives who wanted to be the ones to break him, and by extension, the case.

Finally, Alastair gently pushes a photograph before Eggsy. “Do you recognise this?”

Eggsy’s eyes dart to the reproduction of the stolen painting and then away in disinterest. Despite himself, he finally says, “That’s a painting that hangs in the gallery.”

“It was stolen last night. John William Waterhouse’s _Study for the Sorceress_. It belongs to a private collection and was loaned out to Ms Morton’s gallery under condition of some very robust security measures, which leads us to believe its theft was likely an inside job, a belief that is validated by records of your key card swipe and fingerprints.”

Her mobile vibrates with a new text from Gazelle: _You're not home and I was going to surprise you with lunch. Where are you?_

Was it lunch already?

“So you think I nicked it?” A huff of mirthless laughter seeps from Eggsy’s lips. “Look, my prints are all over that fucking gallery. I _work_ there. And who the fuck knows? Someone nicked my card and made a copy, alright? Why would I be stupid enough to use my own ID if I wanted to steal some dumb painting? What the fuck would I do with a fucking painting anyway?”

“That fucking painting is valued at over a million pounds,” Alastair says.

Eggsy is visibly startled by that figure. “Fuck me, a million quid? Are all them paintings worth that much? My baby sister makes better drawings than half the shit in there.”

_Sorry, darling. Was in a rush. Someone broke into the gallery and stole a painting._

_??? Which one? How??_

“Your past record, Unwin, makes you no stranger to theft. Yes, you recently procured a legal job. Janitor, was it? That’s hard work for very little recompense. Not like what one of those paintings could go for. I imagine you could do quite a bit with that much money. If you tell us what you did with it, we’ll make sure you’ll be given a fair sentence.”

Eggsy leans forward and looks Alastair directly in the eyes. “I didn’t steal no fucking painting, you get me, guv? I wouldn’t do that to Rox. She’s my best mate. She’s the one who gave me the job in the first place.”

 _You're not going to like it. My sorceress,_ Roxy quickly types. When there is no immediate reply, she sighs and drops her arm back by her side.

“Don’t worry,” James says from beside Roxy in a manner she assumes is supposed to be reassuring. “Your brother is very good at his job. Unwin will break soon.”

“The only thing I’m worried about,” Roxy says, through gritted teeth, “is how much time you’re wasting here on someone who would never have done this while the real thief is probably somewhere out there fencing the painting as we speak.”

James does that little smile he tends to make when he's only humouring someone. “Roxy, I know you were friends with Unwin before all this, but don’t let that blind you to the evidence at hand.”

Roxy closes her eyes and slowly counts to three. “Eggsy didn’t have access to any of our security protocols. Yes, his ID card was swiped, but you know his background. There’s no way he had the knowledge or skills to have taken the cameras offline or bypassed the painting’s individual alarm systems, nevermind the lock! It’s quite obvious from where I’m standing that someone managed to clone his ID to get access into the building.”

“We’re exploring every avenue here,” James says. “Even the more improbable scenarios where, yes, Unwin could possibly be innocent.”

Her phone finally buzzes again. _That's impossible._

“Spoken with so much conviction,” Roxy says witheringly. “If we don’t get that painting back, do you know what will happen to me, James? Chester King will sue for my head on a platter. I’ll be done for.”

“We’re not going to let that happen, I promise you,” James tells her, this time putting every ounce of confidence he must possess into each syllable.

_Apparently not. We're all reeling._

In the interrogation room, Alastair produces another photograph. “You said earlier you were at a club last night. Half an hour ago, we verified your story with security footage. Do you recognise this man?”

This time, Eggsy can’t look away, every line of his body tensing in obvious familiarity.

“I can see you do,” Alastair remarks. “Charlie Hesketh. I believe you two became acquainted that very same night at the EGG night club? Witnesses say you two left the club together a few hours before the theft occurred. Any of this ringing a bell?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Eggsy says, fidgeting.

“Mr Hesketh is Chester King’s godson. Do you know who Chester King is?”

“Yeah,” Eggsy admits after a brief bout of hesitation. “He came in a few weeks ago. Got into a row with Rox over some fucking painting he wanted back. Nasty prick.”

“Chester King is the owner of the stolen painting in question.”

Eggsy blinks. His face goes through a series of open expressions: shock, incredulity, and finally, resignation. His shoulders sag until he sinks lower into the chair, now at practically a forty-five degree angle.

“You see how this looks, don’t you?” Alastair says. “Perhaps you learned about the painting’s worth from your brief liaison with Mr Hesketh.”

But Eggsy is already shaking his head. “He was just some closeted toff I sucked off in the back of his car. Couldn’t even give me the common courtesy of returning the favour.”

“Is that part of the reason why you stole his godfather’s painting?” Alastair asks. “An act of revenge?”

“No!” Eggsy vehemently denies, brows furrowing into a perfect 'v'. “I had no fucking idea who he was at the time. Go on and ask him yourself. He gave me a fake name and everything. Something stupid. _John_ fucking _Wick_. Fucking poser.”

“It doesn’t sound like you thought very highly of Mr Hesketh even when you met him. Why, then, did you agree to have sex with him?”

Though a red flush has now overtaken his cheeks, Eggsy glares back defiantly. “I was feeling a bit lonely and just needed to get off. Don’t have to be very picky about it, do I?”

Alastair eases off, folding his hands beneath his chin in consideration. “If you’re not guilty, then what an amazing series of coincidences this has been. That, or you’re extraordinarily unlucky.”

Eggsy looks like he wants to laugh, throwing his hands wide as if he’s giving up on all of it. “Look around you, mate. Does it look like things come up smelling like roses for me?”

_I'm serious. We checked the logs. No breach._

Roxy half-wishes she could barge right into the room and declare the whole thing over then and there. Here she thought she could help Eggsy just a little with a badly needed job. Instead, she’s inadvertently dragged him right into the middle of this mess.

Perhaps Alastair is actually right about one thing in all of this so far: Eggsy Unwin has had a run of extraordinarily bad luck.

 

***

 

When he can be certain no one is looking, Alastair slumps against the wall tiredly rubs at his eyes beneath his glasses. It’s been a long night, and there’s little promise of it ending anytime soon. King phones the Yard at least once an hour demanding updates, and they cannot, as his chief helpfully reminds him, risk alienating such an important benefactor.

He feels James’s presence before he hears him speak. “Your sister is convinced Unwin is innocent. She thinks we’re pursuing the wrong man.”

Alastair sighs and drops his hand, blinking to clear the last remnants of bleariness from his vision. “Roxy is very protective of her friends.”

“She does make some decent points,” James concedes. “Especially about Unwin’s lack of technological prowess. He can swipe a card, but can he take down an entire security system?”

“Unwin’s a lot more clever than he makes himself out to be.”

“Clever enough to bypass a top-of-the-line locking mechanism made by Richmond Valentine himself?”

Alastair purses his lips. “That one’s a little harder to explain. That and….”

At his continued silence, James prompts, “And?”

He has to word this carefully. “Chester King shows up at Roxy’s gallery and demands his painting back. Two weeks later, that very same painting goes missing. It’s a hell of a coincidence, isn’t it.”

James loves the scent of intrigue. “You think there’s more to this than a simple crime of opportunity?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Alastair admits. “And I’d rather not come to any conclusions before all the facts are in.”

“You’ve still got to speak to Hesketh, don’t you?” James asks with a note of sympathy.

He is far too old to throw himself to the ground in a tantrum, Alastair reminds himself. “If he’s as insufferable to deal with as King, I might have to take you up on your offer for drinks after all.”

James visibly brightens. “Really.” He’s been wanting to get into Alastair’s pants since day one of their partnership. If they didn’t have to work together, Alastair might have even considered it.

Unfortunately, his suspicions prove well founded once they come face to face with Charlie Hesketh in his Belgravia flat. Hesketh is young, over-privileged, and every ounce the snob as his godfather. His flat is well appointed and richly furnished with items and artwork that don’t suit Charlie’s more youthful sensibilities, undoubtedly with family money and a mother’s insistence.

Charlie sits imperiously in a wingback armchair, looking just as entitled if somewhat tired with prominent dark circles beneath his eyes. There’s an overbearing gallery wall behind him filled with more numerous expensive oil paintings like they’re in the National Portrait Gallery and not his living room.

Alastair is obliged to make small talk and take a cup of tea while James meanders around the spacious rooms, making a great show of studying each painting rather than helping Alastair conduct interviews, as per usual.

When a suitable amount of time passes, he can finally come to the point, asking Charlie point blank.

“That dirty little thief? Are you joking?” Charlie spits out, face twisted in disgust. “I wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot poll!”

He may have been a little impatient. “There are witness reports of the two of you leaving together,” Alastair reminds him. “And video footage from the club to corroborate.”

Charlie scoffs, but caught out as he is, he’s already spinning his answer. “Alright, fine. We may have bumped into each other there. I think he asked me for a cigarette and he wanted to accompany me outside. I couldn’t shake him off. That’s why it looked like we left the club together. But afterwards, I went home early because I had practise this morning, which you can verify with my coach and everyone on the team. I didn’t sleep with that chav. Why on earth would I? I might as well jab myself with the first needle I see on the ground. It’d be a lot less work.”

From the corner of his eye, Alastair can see James’s brows briefly rise before his features smooth back out and he goes back to ignoring them. “That’s not how Mr Unwin describes your association last night. He claims you approached him using a false name.”

“And you’re taking the word of a criminal over mine?” Charlie asks in disbelief. “You know, a lot of my family’s hard-earned tax dollars goes to funding your department, Detective. To say nothing of our yearly donations. Is this really the Met’s best showing?”

“We just want to get to the bottom of this and recover your godfather’s property, Mr Hesketh,” James placates as he returns and takes a seat next to Alastair on the sofa. He must have got bored.

“Then arrest that thieving whore and get him to tell you what he did with it,” Charlie sneers. “Probably already sold it for drugs by now.”

“Did you pay him?” Alastair suddenly asks.

It takes Charlie off-guard. “What?”

“Did you pay him?” Alastair repeats more slowly. “To have sex with you? Was there a financial transaction?”

Charlie’s mouth opens and closes, then twists into a moue of disgust. “That’s—! What are you talking about?”

“A whore implies Mr Unwin is monetarily compensated for sex. You called him a whore,” Alastair carefully explains while James looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “It leads me to infer you’re rather familiar with the services he offers.”

“I didn’t sleep with him,” Charlie seethes. “I was making an intelligent guess based on his clingy behaviour towards me. I’m insulted by what _you’re_ implying, Detective.”

“Inferring.”

“Whatever!”

“I apologise,” Alastair says, now that the damage has been done. “I didn’t mean to imply anything. Sometimes people let things slip when they least mean to. As a detective, I’m trained to look for how they say something just as much as what they say. Phrasing, especially. I just wanted to clear up any confusion once and for all.”

“Try being a little less confused next time,” Charlie says, visibly struggling to calm down. “Now, is that all the questions you have or should I contact my attorney?”

“I think that’ll be all for now,” Alastair smoothly says as he stands, James taking his cue to follow suit. “We do apologise for taking up so much of your time, of course. I assume we can follow up with you if we have any more questions?”

“Just remember _my_ family and loved ones are the victims here, Detective,” Charlie warns, folding his arms across his chest as he remains seated. “You can show yourselves out.”

When they’re safely back on the street, James mutters under his breath, “Bloody hell. What a piece of work. I’ll tell you something: if Unwin did do it, can’t say I blame him.”

Alastair remains quiet as they make it leisurely stroll back along the Birdcage Walk just as dusk sweeps over the city, but James doesn't notice because he likes to natter on incessantly and not say very much at all. Alastair has learned to let it blend in with the rest of the ambient noise around him, little different from the cars on the road or the conversations of passing strangers. He turns over the case in his mind, mulling and brooding over every facet and detail. “There’s something not right here.”

“Well, obviously Charlie’s lying,” James says without missing a beat from his previous remarks about his ailing aunt, all while glancing down at his phone. “But it’s probably out of embarrassment more than anything to do with the case.”

“It can hardly be random chance, Unwin’s connection to him,” Alastair thinks aloud. “The question is...why? How does he fit into this? What did Unwin have to gain by targeting him? Hesketh and King are close, but there’s no evidence Charlie's involved in the running of King’s personal or business affairs. The boy clearly doesn’t have a single care or appreciation for art.”

This causes James to glance up from his phone, if only briefly. “You did visit the same home I did, did you not? I was half afraid if I leaned in too close, alarms would start going off.”

“Every single piece on Charlie’s wall belongs to King.”

James arches a brow. “Know a lot about art, do you?” 

“I know _a little_ about art,” Alastair corrects. “I know a lot more about King’s collection. Roxy used to be King’s personal curator. He’s never forgiven her for leaving him. She had a time of it negotiating for the gallery.”

“So, what if... ” James poses, “Unwin goes home with Charlie in genuine pursuit of a one night stand. Asks about all the paintings on the walls. Charlie can’t help but boast about his godfather. Unwin makes the connection to some of the pieces in the gallery. Gets it into his head to steal one for himself. Sneaks out early to have a go of it.”

“On impulse? Besides, Unwin says all sexual activity took place in Hesketh’s car,” Alastair says. “He never would have seen the flat if that were the case.”

“If he’s telling the truth.”

“What did the CCTV footage show?”

It takes a few moments for James to find the necessary videos from his phone. “No sights on the streets outside the club. Cameras pick up Charlie’s car around 3am. Heading home.” And then he has to admit, “Looks like he was alone. And rather inebriated if his driving is anything to go by.”

“So Unwin likely wasn’t lying about that,” Alastair muses. “But Charlie _was_ lying about the time he got home.”

“Which can still be explained by not wanting his big gay secret to get out,” James counters.

“Which still leaves us with Unwin as the most credible suspect.” It should be enough, Alastair thinks. What evidence they have is as fairly cut and dry as these things ever are. Only, something still doesn’t sit right with him about it. Still too many unknowns.

“Ah, not so fast,” James says slowly, staring down at his phone in growing disbelief.

“What is it?”

“Someone just walked into the Yard and said we’ve got the wrong man. Wants to confess to the whole bloody thing.”

 _That_ causes Alastair’s steps to falter. “What? Who?”

“Well. This is certainly unexpected.”

“ _Spencer_.” Alastair’s fingers twitch. Sometimes he has to resist the urge to throttle his partner by the neck. “Who is it?”

James finally meets his eyes. “The man claims to be the infamous Harry Hart.”

 

***

 

From the corner of his eye, Hamish catches Roxy tilting her head as if considering something, quite possibly the man who’s captured her full attention ever since he was brought into the interrogation room on the other side of the mirror.

“You went to school with him once, didn’t you?” she finally says.

“A long time ago,” Hamish says, feigning disinterest on the whole subject. “He was as much of a bastard then as he is now.”

“What are you doing?” Roxy asks, drawing closer to look over his shoulder at the laptop screen he hasn’t looked away from from once.

“I’m combing through our security records to find out exactly _how_ —”

“You don’t have to do that,” she gently says. “That’s what the police are here for.”

“I don’t trust the police to tell their elbows from their arseholes.”

A small hand warms his shoulder, causing him to finally look up at her. “This wasn’t your fault,” Roxy tells him. “Harry Hart has broken into far more secure places than mine.”

“Yes, but none of those places put me in charge of their security,” Hamish says. “Even Hart shouldn’t have been able to have bypassed my systems, much less Valentine's.”

It’s a blow to his pride. He refuses to accept it.

Roxy seems to understand. Her face is all commiseration and sympathy. After all, nobody likes to play the fool. “Well, we’re about to hear how he did it, if that helps.”

It won’t, but Hamish has a burning need to know anyway.

It’s the first time he’s seen Harry in more than a decade, and the last time had ended rather acrimoniously with an argument over Harry's growing criminal proclivities. Though there are more lines on Harry’s face and a less defined jawline these days, he still has his trim figure and a full head of hair, Hamish can’t help but resentfully note. Harry’s even learned how to style it so that it doesn’t sit like an unruly pile of shaved fur atop his head anymore. He still likes to wear expensive tailored suits better suited to a boardroom meeting than a stint in jail. The most galling thing, though, is how perfectly relaxed Harry appears with the entire situation, like he’s simply here to pay an old friend a visit rather than confess to a crime that will get him sent down for at least a half decade on its own.

It’s DI Spencer conducting the interrogation this time. Hamish was informed Spencer had occasional run-ins with Harry in the past. And even though Harry always successfully evaded an actual charge, they supposedly remain cordial to each other when their paths cross.

Everything about Spencer’s appearance now suggests he’s happy to see Harry, like a couple of former schoolmates reuniting at the pub for drinks rather than an officer of the law and one of the world’s most notorious thieves on which no one could pin a single crime. Hamish knows if he were to come face to face with Harry in that room, he’d probably try to strangle him.

“Well, this is certainly an about-face, Harry,” Spencer opens with once he settles into the chair across from him and folds his hands on the table. “You pride yourself on always being able to slip through our fingers, not running headlong into our open arms.”

The corners of Harry’s mouth turn up in rueful amusement. “What can I say? Circumstances change.”

“And what circumstances are those?”

“I don’t want an innocent boy take the fall for something I’ve done.”

“Yet you were the one, I assume, who cloned his keycard in the first place, knowing this would happen. What a curious change of heart. You never much cared before what happened to your collateral damage, even got them fired from their jobs for negligence if not the actual crimes you, yourself, committed.”

Harry shrugs off the accusation. “I don't know to what crimes you're referring, but it sounds as if those people _were_ negligent at best, greedy at worst. And if they weren’t, they wouldn’t have ended up in the situations they did. But none of them were half as vulnerable as Unwin. I know how you saw him before I came along. He was considered all but guilty in your eyes. Once a criminal, always a criminal, is it?”

Harry speaks with more passion and sincerity than Hamish has ever witnessed from him. It’s quite frankly astonishing.

In the other room, James purses his lips but doesn’t deny Harry’s accusation. “Walk me through how you did it.”

And so Harry lays it out without much embellishment or drama, which is downright uncharacteristic for him:

A classic honeypot. It’s always standard practise to locate the weakest link in any organisation’s security—its people. In this particular case, the weakest of all had been Unwin. Pick him up in the pub he prefers, seduce him, make him bring you home, show him some badly needed affection. Harry always did like pretty things, and Unwin was very much to type on that front.

Nick the keycard, make a copy, put back the original before its owner even notices.

“I saw that Hamish Campbell was employed at the gallery,” Harry says idly, darting a glance to to the mirror like he knows exactly who’s on the other side. Hamish starts and then clenches his jaw so hard that his teeth begin to ache. “In charge of security, is it? He always did love fiddling about with computers. He could work magic with just a few wires and a power source. We used to call him Merlin, the tech wizard. Let’s just say, I know how he thinks, and once you have that, finding _his_ weakest links was fairly simple. Once I hacked into his system, I dismantled the cameras and motion sensors. From there, it was an open buffet.”

“Merlin?” Roxy mutters in incredulity under her breath.

“I’m going to kill him,” Hamish resolves.

“But you only took one,” James says. “ _Study for The Sorceress_ , wasn’t it? And it wasn’t even the most expensive painting in the gallery.”

“But there’s something rather eye-catching about it, no?”

Hamish swears Harry knows more than he’s saying. But then, he’s always enjoyed walking around with that stupid smirk on his face.

“There’s just one more question I have,” James says. “How did you get past Valentine’s tech?” At Harry’s blank look, he adds, “You know, the actual physical locking mechanism that secured the entire glass case containing the painting that was mounted to the wall? It was programmed with Valentine’s latest biometric security features, which weren't even in beta release, much less the consumer market. That’s something not even you could get around. I can’t say I’m an expert on the topic, but it supposedly involves something more than just a hand print? Body temperature, skin colour, etcetera. The only two people in the world who could have opened that lock were Ms Morton and Mr Campbell.”

“Huh, is that so?” Harry asks after pretending to consider the issue. “Perhaps you ought to be asking one of them then.”

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” When Harry’s bemused expression doesn’t change, James concludes, “...you didn’t take the painting. And you know you didn’t. Which means you’re here to waste our time. Why?”

Hamish can practically feel Roxy tense behind him. “Hamish,” she says quietly, “it’s still only the two of us who were programmed into the system, right?”

He opens a new window, logs into the V-corp access program, and checks out the associated accounts. Nothing looks amiss: it’s still just him and Roxy.

Driven by instinct, however, Hamish pulls up the system’s activity records, and scrolls through lines upon lines of routine minutiae until one line in particular jumps out at him.

He curses.

 

***

 

For the fourth time in his career with the London Metropolitan Police, James Spencer watches Harry Hart walk out of Scotland Yard a free man, giving him a courteous nod as he passes by. If James were cut from a more prideful cloth, he might have resented Harry, but fortunately for him, he takes great joy in finding amusement where and when he can.

Besides, Harry is the world’s rarest type of criminal: a noble one. James would rather see a great many others get sent down before him.

“I think that’s a new record for shortest stay,” he says as Harry’s tall, slim silhouette pauses in the front entrance for a moment as he adjusts his glasses before stepping out onto the street.

“That man has and never will be innocent. He was involved in this somehow,” Alastair says grimly, less pleased about the turn of events than his partner. “Why would he try and protect Unwin? What could be their connection?"

Alastair had a point. Hart was out of Unwin's league, at least in terms of affordability, if one could possibly entertain the notion Unwin hired Hart for this job. "At least he inadvertently gave us a solid new lead."

But Alastair is hardly appeased. "One day we’ll find a way to make it stick with that one.”

“Be that as it may,” James continues, “Mr Campbell confirms someone programmed a third ID into their biometric system. Someone who has the resources to pull off a job like this but isn’t quite clever enough to realise he ought to have covered his tracks more thoroughly.”

Alastair, ever quick on the uptake, which is a quality James greatly admires about him, says, “You suspect Charlie, don’t you?”

“Charlie could have been motivated to retrieve his godfather’s painting from what he’d perceive to be the upstart female-owned gallery holding it hostage. And the opportunity to pin it all on Unwin? It would have been too good to pass up.”

“That’s a lot of supposition.”

“Excuse you, it’s an _intelligent guess_ ,” James says, grinning outright when Alastair scowls. “How about this? Both the King and Hesketh families have close associations with Valentine. It wouldn’t be difficult for Charlie to find the necessary people to help him.”

“I’m not entirely convinced.” Stubborn man. Always so sceptical of everything. “What evidence we have—”

“Points to two possible suspects now, one of whom has repeatedly lied to us and has the money, motivation, and means to have carried this off.”

“We don’t know if that handprint is Charlie’s. It’s quite a leap to go from rowing club to high-stakes art theft. He’s not even in the criminal system for so much as a speeding ticket.”

“That only means he’s never been caught or his connections keep him protected. How about a little wager then?” James proposes. “I think the print will be a match, but if I’m wrong, I’ll handle the paperwork for the next month.”

Alastair side eyes him, finally sighing with exasperation. “Three months.”

James grimaces. He does so loathe paperwork. “Fine. Three months it is.”

“And if you’re right?”

This time, he smirks. “Dinner with me. Just me. And no more excuses this time.”


	2. the sorceress

“ _Eggsy._ ”

Harry cups Eggsy’s cheek, and he is hardpressed to determine the exact colour of his eyes. A detonation of blue and green, overwhelmingly, but then, at the epicentre of this supernova there are the Starry Night whorls of amber and gold flecks. Now, they shine back at him, wide and bright with fear of the unknown and much longed for, and something familiar: desire.

He’s instilled that look in many, many men and women before, but this is the first time, quite vexingly, he has ever wanted to return it.

So Harry does something he has never done before, moved by this unexpected and devastating emotion that leaves him feeling like he not only has got no clothes on, but no skin, nor armour as well.

He tells the truth.

“Chester King is going to frame you for stealing a painting. I know this because he’s hired me to do it.”

The words take several moments to register with Eggsy. It happens gradually, the light extinguishing within his eyes until they become as flat and bleak as a northern beach in winter. “What?”

“I know it sounds crazy,” Harry forges on, despite the hurt that each syllable deals out to Eggsy, to himself, “but you must listen carefully: I will do everything in my power to fix this.”

Eggsy sits up and retracts from his touch, scooting across what minimal distance the width of the bed can afford him and leaving a cold absence in Harry’s hand. It hurts, but Harry lets him reclaim his space. “What the fuck are you on about? What…? Who the fuck are you?”

“That’s a rather complicated question,” Harry says, moving to sit up as well. There’s a luscious twinge in his arse. Any other time, he’d relish the souvenir and allow himself to sink back into the fond memories it would have inspired. Now, he simply feels cheap and worn through. “My name really is Harry Hart. I simply may have forgotten to add that I just so happen to steal things for a living.”

“Like a... thief?” Eggsy tentatively asks, still trying to wrap his mind around the entire situation. “An actual professional thief?”

“Precisely so.”

“You was gonna steal a painting?”

“Still am.”

“You gonna steal from my mate’s gallery?” There’s a note of outrage in his tone now.

Harry blinks. Perhaps this hadn’t been the wisest thing to focus on, but he’s sworn, if only to himself, to tell the truth and nothing less, if nothing more. “...yes.”

“And you was gonna make it look like I stole it.”

“Yes.”

“By shagging me?”

“Not…” Harry stumbles for the right words, closing his eyes briefly. “The shagging was really a means to an end. I needed to know you. I needed your fingerprints and your key card, which I would have procured while you were asleep.”

In hindsight, a bad choice of words. Too much stark truth. Eggsy’s face closes down completely as he looks at his hands curled in his lap over the wrinkled sheets. “And I fell for it, hook, line, and bloody sinker. You must really think I’m an idiot.”

“Not in the slightest,” Harry says earnestly. “Very much the opposite, in fact.”

Instead of reassuring Eggsy, the boy’s face turns troubled. “I don’t even know who this Chester King is!” Eggsy’s voice wavers on the hysterical, having apparently reached his breaking point, though he’s still mindful of the thin walls. “Or why the fuck he wants to frame me in the first place!”

“Well, he certainly seems to have it out for you. Are you certain you never met him?”

“Fuck if I know! I…” But then Eggsy trails off, frowning as something belatedly occurs to him. “No, wait. King? He came to the gallery last week. He and Roxy got into it. Demanding back some painting of his. Was getting real fresh, you know? So I stepped in and told him to fuck off. He wants to send me to the nick for that?”

“There’s a reason why people try never to cross him,” Harry says, grimacing. The situation is a lot more clear now, and darker for it. “He’s a vindictive, cruel bastard. He’s done far worse to people who’ve done far less to anger him.”

“He don’t even know me, what the fuck?” Then, as if fully realising Harry’s part in all this, his features twist into angered disgust as he looks at Harry like he’s dirt. “And you was gonna help him do it! Does he always pay you to get your hands dirty so he don’t have to?” 

“No,” Harry says. “This is the first time he’s ever hired my services and it was...an unusual situation I normally wouldn’t have agreed to.” A distasteful one at that. “But I knew if I refused, I’d risk his incurring wrath as well.”

“Then why are you even telling me this now? I’d never have known. Could’ve fucked me over and been on your merry way.”

“Because you’re the loveliest person I’ve ever met,” Harry says, “And I would never want to cause you harm.”

The naked emotion makes Eggsy flush with embarrassment, those pink, pink lips parting in surprise, eyes wide again with that startled unbidden desire. In reflex, all of Eggsy’s inner defences rear their ugly head and he spits out, “Decided all that while we was fucking, did you?”

“To be honest, it started the moment I laid eyes on you in person,” Harry replies sincerely.

It disarms Eggsy again; his mouth opens and closes like he doesn’t know what to make of someone who would admit something like that so freely. But then, of course, that long ingrained suspicion won’t let go so easily. “How do I know this ain’t another trick?”

Harry dares to reach across that space that has grown between them, slowly shifting his body closer to Eggsy’s warmth, encouraged when Eggsy does not move away from him. He tenderly cups the side of his neck, and is delighted when Eggsy sways into him, softening beneath his touch. Emboldened, he thumbs the sharp angle of Eggsy’s jaw and across the plush swell of his kiss-stained bottom lip. He can’t help it: leaning forward to kiss him again to deepen its colour further, taste that sweet mouth.

He steals for a living but the things he takes never stay long in his possession. This one, he wants to keep.

When Harry pulls back, Eggsy’s eyes are slow to open again, half-lidded, lips wet, pupils wide and black, swallowing up whole oceans and everything Harry has ever built his foundations upon.

“I have a plan to get us both through this if you’ll trust me just this once.”

 

***

 

Eggsy hates snobs, nightclubs, and especially snobs who frequent snobby nightclubs, so he absolutely fuck all hates Charlie pretty much on sight. The bloke smells like money, and with the way he throws it around for the flock of women fanning after him, he’s all but asking to get rolled over in the back alley one night. Hell, in another lifetime, Eggsy would have been the one to do it.

This time, however, he waits until Charlie comes up to the bar to make his move, hands jammed into his jean pockets, accidentally on purpose giving Charlie’s arm a hard shove with his shoulder as he tries to get by him in the limited space.

“Hey, watch where you’re going, pleb!” Charlie snarls in his ear. Even his voice is grating, dripping with superiority.

Eggsy stops and turns back towards Charlie like, clapping a hand on the arm he offended, leaving it there just a little too long. Lay it on real thick. “Sorry about that, mate. Head in the clouds and all that. Say, you wouldn’t happen to have a fag I could bum off you?” he asks while pointedly eyeing the pack of smokes sticking right out of Charlie’s front pocket.

There’s a line of rudeness even someone as condescending and stuck up as Charlie won’t cross, so he’s obliged to pull out the pack and offer it up, though he certainly don’t look altogether too pleased about it.

“Cheers,” Eggsy says with a shit-eating smile, plucking out a cigarette and sticking it behind his ear. “Gotta light to go with that?”

“Only my grandfather’s zippo,” Charlie says flatly. “I’m not about to give you that. You’d probably try to pawn it.”

This would normally be the point where Eggsy would tell Charlie off and then steal his zippo anyway, but instead he infuses his words with as much meaning as possible, maintaining eye contact, his smile tilting towards coy and his gag reflex kept firmly in check. “Then maybe you ought to come with me and keep watch.”

Charlie’s still got that smirking sneer on his face as he slowly eyes Eggsy up and down, remaining fixated on the red, swollen lips Eggsy made sure to bite all to hell and back. He's been told they were cocksucker lips before. He hadn’t been sure any of this would even work, but now there can be no doubt: posh people love a bit of rough.

“I’m not paying for this,” Charlie says, just in case Eggsy wasn’t sure about wanting to punch him in his fat fucking mouth.

“I wasn’t charging, bruv,” Eggsy says before he turns and saunters towards the exit, throwing a quick, simmering glance over his shoulder to ensure Charlie is following.

The night is bracingly cool when Eggsy steps out into it, its relative quiet a balm to his eardrums after the pulsing, frenetic beat growling within the club. He only gets a moment to himself, steeling his nerves with a quick and shaky exhalation, before Charlie is there in his fucking space, crowding him against the wall, suffocating him in some pungent rank cologne.

It feels all sorts of wrong to have Charlie’s cold, booze-soaked tongue in his mouth, as repulsive as a writhing eel. His lips, his smell, his hard, fabric-covered cock pressing against Eggsy’s hip, all wrong. It turns him cold, douses any embers of attraction he could possibly stoke for this, but Eggsy moans and sighs into it all as wantonly as he can make it, feeling a bit stupid and unconvincing even though Charlie fails to notice.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Finally, Eggsy’s had enough and puts a hand to Charlie’s chest, pushing him back some. “If you think I’m gonna suck your dick on this piss-soaked ground, you’re fucking mental.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Charlie asks, nostrils flaring in offence. “I’m not taking you back to my place.”

At least, Eggsy reflects, Charlie makes this easy. “Gotta car?”

Charlie does, in fact, have a car: a handsome hunter green Jaguar that’s tiny with little to no actual space to sit in much less contort one’s body into any other position in order to comfortably embark on some road head. Charlie unbuckles his stupid fucking belt with an actual fucking ‘H’ on it, unzips his fly and pulls out his flushed, gleaming cock, looking at Eggsy expectantly. “Well, go on.”

So Eggsy’s got to bend down over the stick shift digging into his sternum and come face to face with Charlie’s dick, smell his musk and sweat like he really wants that thing shoved down his throat, and even glance up at Charlie all invitingly and shit.

It was better, Harry had instructed when handing Eggsy the capped syringe, to inject it in the arse.

“How the fuck am I gonna come up with an excuse to get anywhere near his arse?” Eggsy had asked in disbelief.

“Oh ye of little faith,” Harry replied.

Well, now Eggsy’s up close and personal and he’s quick and clever with his hands anyway, so Charlie don’t even feel the needle slipping through the layers of his jeans and underwear into his skin, right into the side of his cheek that Eggsy can get to, all the while pretending to admire Charlie’s average, wholly uninteresting dick without actually having to make physical contact with it.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Suck it, you whore,” Charlie manages to say before his eyes roll up into the back of his head and he slumps forward onto the steering wheel just as Eggsy manages to get out of the way, lest he find himself wedged between Charlie’s chest and his dick.

He practically throws himself against the passenger door, flattening himself against the glass.

“Holy fuck,” Eggsy says, shaking from what he’s just done, then almost jumps out of his skin when someone knocks on the window next to his head. "FUCK!"

Through the fogged up glass, he can see Harry raise his brows. Eggsy sheepishly opens the door.

"Bloody well done," Harry says, which makes Eggsy feel no small amount of pleasure.

Which just won't do. He can never trust it. "Look, I did all the hard work. You gonna be the one to carry him to your car," he replies, then glances back at Charlie's slumped figure and his still proudly upright cock. " _And_ get him back into his trousers."

 

***

 

There’s half a second where they hold their breaths and wonder if Eggsy’s card won’t work after all, but of course it does. The indicator light switches green. There’s a loud click as the bolt slides back and the lock disengages. Harry opens the door to the gallery, as solemn and cool as an ancient tomb.

The Morton Gallery is cavernous, all exposed brick, pipes, and rafters. It was converted from a disused East London factory in the most up and coming part of the city, well on its gentrified way to yet another overpriced, yuppie, bourgeois hellscape.

Its egalitarian philosophy led it to feature both local and very famous artists, and it wasn’t too choosy about style or era. Up and coming mingled with well established. Classical with modern.

Eggsy never had much of an interest in art. He’s barely given any of the pieces in the gallery more than a cursory glance as he’s swept and mopped the floors, but he’s not working now, and Harry delights in taking him from piece to piece, explaining what is so compelling about each one.

“This is one of Picasso’s earlier works. More realistic, you see, before he really developed his more trademark style. He was very prolific, Eggsy. Tens of thousands of works.”

“This is a new artist. See all the sharp contrast with the light and shadow? But look how sympathetic the subject is portrayed. Very much reminds me of Rembrandt.”

But what is more wondrous is how Eggsy listens carefully to him, actually trying to see what Harry sees, even if he isn’t always successful.

Finally, though, they come upon the Waterhouse, encased in so many layers of protection as to be forbidding, but those were King’s terms in order to display it.

“All this for a little painting,” Eggsy remarks, staring at the very source of his recent troubles. “And not even a big, famous one. _A study_.” So he had been listening.

“Have you seen the final work, _The Sorceress_?” Harry asks, coming up close from behind and leaning over his shoulder to gaze at the painting.

“Yeah.” Eggsy shrugs. “Made her ginger. Added a bunch more animals and shit to it. Guess he didn’t care too much for brunettes.”

“Perhaps not this time,” Harry concedes. “The subject was something of a favourite of Waterhouse. He painted her three times. The Sorceress is also known as Circe. She was considered a powerful witch who turned rivals into monsters and men who scorned her into animals she kept on her island. But you know, behind the fearsome wrath and magic is someone who loved and lost like anyone else. In some ways, this study is like a glimpse into the more vulnerable side of the woman behind the myth.”

Eggsy’s brows furrow, not exactly impressed. “Yeah, alright. While this is nice and all, we still got Charlie in the boot and a finite window to work within here."

It makes Harry smile, amused. “Not that I blame you. I was never much for the Pre-Raphaelites myself. Too much death fetish, womanising, and elitism. But, I can’t deny they painted some very beautiful women.”

“And now we’re going to steal one of them,” Eggsy says. “I’m going to do the thing I’m supposed to be falsely accused of doing.” There’s still lingering doubt there.

“I know none of this sits comfortably with you,” Harry says. “But I promise, everything will be alright.”

“I never pictured my life would become some sort of caper film,” Eggsy admits. “Past few weeks feels like I’ve been in a waking dream just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Soon this will all be over,” Harry promises, touching his shoulder once before moving away. “The hardest part isn’t actually the theft itself. It’s all that comes before and all that will come after. But first thing’s first: the gallery’s systems.”

Eggsy steps closer, examining the case enclosing the painting and where it’s been mounted to the wall. “About that...how the hell we gonna actually break into this thing? I remember watching them install it. Heard it was some latest V-tech shit. Supposed to be unbreakable.”

There’s no better cue than that.

“That’s why we’re not going to break into it,” Roxy says as she emerges from Hamish’s office where she had been watching them. “Not when we can simply open the case.”

“I was wondering where you were hiding,” Harry says.

Eggsy goes stock still and gapes at her like a startled deer. “Rox? You knew?”

“What?” Roxy says as she approaches them, giving Eggsy a _you should know better_ look. “Did you really think I was going to let someone steal from my gallery without joining in on the fun?”

 

***

 

“This is all bloody ridiculous! I don’t know how my prints got in there. I had nothing to do with that bloody painting. _I’m the victim here!_ ” Charlie shouts grow louder as he emerges outside, hands cuffed behind his back, sternly guided between two constables who lead him to the back of their squad car. The print taking had not gone well for him, as it would happen.

When he catches sight of Alastair, his eyes widen and he snarls and lurches forward, only to be forcibly held back, “ _You!_ You’ll be hearing from my father about this! I’ve been set up, and you’re too stupid to catch the real thief! I told you it’s that chav! He’s a thief and a liar!” When nobody reacts, he finishes with, “Oh, fuck the lot of you!”

All the commotion has drawn several sets of curious eyes peering out from behind various window shades throughout the street. Some nosy neighbours have abandoned subtlety altogether and were hanging out their windows or hovering in their open doorways, outright gawking.

“Well, that went about as well as could be expected,” mutters Alastair, rubbing at the newly birthed headache in his temple.

“Leave it to Charlie to conduct himself with dignity and grace under fire,” James remarks as joins Alastair outside, hands folded behind his back.

“This won’t be the end of it, I can guarantee you that.” He can only imagine how many angry calls they’ll be fielding from Hesketh Senior, King, and their multitude of attorneys.

“No. I don’t believe it will,” James agrees congenially, the affable idiot. “But I do have to show you something.”

Alastair follows James back into the house. In the study, they find what appears to be Unwin’s duplicated key card in the top desk drawer. They’ll have to verify it later, but given everything else, it’s fairly damning as far as evidence goes.

“What’s more,” James adds, smug with excitement like a child proudly showing off. “Take a gander at the walls.”

Alastair humours him by casting his gaze over the various portraits and paintings adorning the study. Not much is to his taste. Without Roxy's deft hand, King seemed to prefer price tag over any sort of unified aesthetic or trait, but—

“Oh,” Alastair says, dumbfounded.

“Indeed,” James agrees. "A rather brazen decision on Charlie's part, wouldn't you say?"

There hanging amongst the dark, tempestuous landscapes and Impressionist portraits is _Study for The Sorceress_ herself, wistful and melancholy amidst her heavier, broodier companions.

James claps a hand on his shoulder. “So shall I pick you up at seven tomorrow night?”

 

***

 

Hamish, whose entire world has been upended enough already, does not have time for this shit. He was hired to create and maintain a foolproof security system, not play involuntary witness to an all-out, nasty row between his employer and her lover.

To their credit, Roxy and Gazelle try to keep their fight contained to Roxy’s office with the door closed, but the walls are thin and the space is vast with some spectacular acoustics. He might as well be in the same room.

So he gamely attempts to tune out the racket with a hot cup of tea and once again combing over the system logs, trying to pinpoint any irregularities, any points of weakness that Harry had exploited in order to dismantle everything from the cameras to the motion sensors to the V-tech API. But there is nothing, _nothing_. To his exacting eye, his code is perfect. His system is perfect.

Hamish rubs a hand down his face, then over his bald scalp. So how the hell did that bastard get in?

Before he can start from the very beginning once more, the door to Roxy’s office bursts open with so much force, it smacks into the wall and rebounds, leaving a sizable dent in its wake. It very well could have swung back shut again had not Gazelle bounded through it, a thunderous expression on her features that has made many men visibly quake.

“Gazelle!” Roxy calls out, swift on her heels. “Oh, come on. It’s not even going to be publicised! No one will know!”

Gazelle whips back around to face her. “People _talk_ , Roxy. That’s all the people of your circle do. Influential people. Investors! That’s more insidious. And if you think that’s all I’m mad about, you’re more deluded than I thought!”

Roxy tries to rest a hand along Gazelle’s arm imploringly. “I didn’t go out with you to use you. I went out with you because I _like_ you. This...this whole matter was something completely incidental. There was an opportunity and I….”

“Took it,” Gazelle finishes for her, shrugging off her hand. “And didn’t think twice about what it would mean. I put not only my reputation on the line for you, but also our proprietary technology! And you fucked us over. Everyone will always doubt our work.”

“What’s going on?” Hamish finally dares to ask, drawing both sets of eyes to him. He only just manages not to flinch.

“Why don’t you ask your boss how this Harry Hart circumnavigated your system,” Gazelle says with a grimace. “Then if you want, come talk to me. You may just find we have a lot in common.”

With one last angry glance at Roxy, Gazelle storms out with a final, “Find somewhere else to sleep tonight!” tossed over her shoulder.

Roxy sighs and slumps against the damaged wall. A look of genuine regret flashes across her face before she notices Hamish watching and puts back on one of pleasant optimism. “She’s always had quite the temper. She just needs to get the worst of her anger out and then we’ll talk. It’ll be alright.”

“What did she mean? What did you do?” Hamish asks her, and when all he gets is a slightly discomfited look, he stands up and approaches her and pins her with an exacting stare. “How did Harry Hart hack into my system, Roxanne?”

“Well...” Roxy begins, shifting on her feet, playing with a seam in her skirt. “The good news, Hamish, is that your system still works flawlessly....”

 

***

 

King's furious presence in the Yard causes quite the stir. Nervous energy suddenly swells. Various office bodies bustle about twice as frenetically. Detectives and constables and pen pushers nervously eye each other with suspicion.

The door to their chief’s office has remained closed ever since King stormed in with his attorneys and the superintendent half an hour ago, and the mounting tension has swallowed up even James’s usually cheerful, sublime disposition.

Ironically, Alastair appears as calm as a sunny day.

“I’d have expected you to be in pieces by now,” James tells him.

Alastair merely arches a brow at him, unimpressed, before returning to his report. He's the only person James knows who decreases the margins and font size so he can write more in. “People are only afraid of what they do not know, and I know exactly what’s going to happen next.”

“So certain, are we?”

“I know King’s ways. I know of how much he pays off the department and key politicians to do what he wants when he wants it.”

“And what’s going to happen, oh Oracle Morton?”

“That door is going to open.” Alastair nods at said closed door where they can only glimpse the shape of silhouettes moving within through the opaque glass and hear the muffled sounds of impassioned, raised voices. “And everyone is going to file out with smug expressions. The chief will be the last to emerge along with King. They’ll tell us in light of recent revelations, King will not be pressing charges and would rather have this matter swept under the rug. It’s a family affair, you see. Then we’ll have to bite our tongues, get on with it, and Charlie will walk out of here, untouched as always.”

James frowns. “You really think that’s what’s going to happen?”

The door to their boss’s office starts to open just then. Alastair only nods to it. _Look and pay attention_.

A line of suits, seemingly unending, files out, moving like ants along a predetermined path across the floor, practically indistinguishable from one another. James doesn’t know how they all fit in their superior's office in the first place. They are very self-satisfied, as Alastair predicted.

Then the superintendent and King appear, the former turning to shake the latter’s hand like King’s won some sort of wager. Perhaps he has.

And finally, their poor, beleaguered chief, looking like he’s just gone ten rounds with a prize fighter, limping up from behind with his tail between his legs.

Together, they head towards Alastair and James, who scrape their chairs across the floor in their haste to stand at attention.

“Morton, Spencer.” Their chief nods to them, a stilted jerk of his head like a puppet whose strings were being jerked about. “After a very enlightening discussion with the DCS and Mr King, we’ve decided this case really is a private family matter, and thus, should be left to King to manage any other affairs involving Mr Hesketh. We will be releasing Mr Hesketh into Mr King’s charge right away and returning his rightful property back to him.”

“Of course, sir,” Alastair says coolly. No suspect. No evidence of a crime. No case. A smooth cover-up.

“Whatever Mr King wishes,” James can’t help but add, drawing a round of narrowed eyes in his direction that he fobs off with a shark-like smile.

When the group departs, James feels like he can breathe easier, nearly folding over in two. “Well, you certainly had that one down.”

“Life is rather predictable on the whole, except….” 

“Except?” James prompts.

“Something about this case. It was all rather too neat, wasn’t it? There’s something I’m still missing,” Alastair says, brows furrowing in troubled thought. If left to his own devices, he’d be at it like a dog with a bone for several weeks to come, James knows from experience. Best to provide a suitable distraction.

“Well, no need to trouble yourself any further with it. It is, as you say, swept under the rug. Now, with that done with, I’m off to have myself a bittersweet victory smoke.”

“What’s been sweet about any of this?” Alastair asks.

“Oh, didn’t you hear?” James says lightly. “I’ve got myself a lovely date for tonight out of all this.”

Alastair scowls and makes a big show returning to a report he'll never be able to officially file, though he still writes it up with dogged determination anyway because at heart, he's a little dutiful, rule-abiding nerd with actual notions of a promotion.

Distraction a success. Chuckling, James heads towards the back exit, pulling out his mobile and sorting through his contacts until he stops at a lone record labelled _G_.

“Hello, DI Spencer,” Harry says after picking up before the first ring has even gone through. “I do hope you have good news for me.”

“Everything has gone according to plan. The card and painting were put in place the first time round, found on the second. King’s come swooping in like Grendel’s mother, and now the case is closed. Charlie will soon be released wherein he’ll be sent back to his godfather's bosom, a little bruised but ultimately none the worse for wear, much as he could use a good lesson.”

“Lovely. I do so enjoy it when it all comes together so seamlessly like this. I thank you for your generous assistance in these matters. You know, Detective, you and I work very well together when we’re both on the same team. Have you ever considered a life of gentlemanly crime?”

“While I’m sure the pay is better,” James says, glancing behind him at Alastair still diligently pecking away at page eight of what is sure to be an at least 40-page report, “I’m a man who needs very little in order to be content.”

“Fair enough. I hope you have a lovely life with your partner,” Harry says.

“Please be aware, Mr Hart, this was a one-time alliance only for the sake of a mutual enemy. The next time we run into each other, I’ll surely be compelled to place you under arrest.”

“You are most certainly welcome to try your very best,” Harry says, and James can hear the smirk in his voice before he hangs up.

 

***

 

Several weeks later, Eggsy sits in Roxy’s office and watches her carefully unwrap a brown paper package to reveal the muted visage of _Study for the Sorceress_. He watches her gaze down upon it for a very long time, and there’s something like immense fondness in her eyes, a soft smile gently lining her lips, the likes of which he has only seen when she was truly happy.

But he’s still confused.

“I don’t get it,” he says. “King fought like a rabid dog to get this painting back. How is it he’s suddenly just given it to you?”

“Well, it’s quite simple,” Roxy says. “He sold it to me.”

“Sold…? But he hates your guts, Rox. And you ain’t got that kind of money.”

“Maybe not before all this, but let’s just say, I got a steep discount.” Rox smiles conspiratorially. “King was rather embarrassed over his machinations being discovered and wanted the whole thing to be hushed up. It wouldn’t do for a bad word to get out about his godson, truth to it or not. He asked me for my price. I named the painting. Oh, but how that pained him.”

There’s something about the way she says it, the knowing, the pleasure of it, that makes a light flip on in Eggsy’s brain. He suddenly sees it all, clear as day. “You knew you was gonna get the painting at the end of all this. It was your goal all along. That’s why you got involved in the first place.”

Roxy meets his eyes, impressed and unashamed. “People must underestimate you a lot, don’t they?”

“But...how?”

After a long moment of indecision, Roxy finally says, “I fell in love with this painting a ways back.” She can’t help but return her attention to it once more as if pulled by some invisible force. “I procured it for King’s collection once upon a time. Even when I left his employ, I always dreamed of getting to see it again, though the closest I thought I’d ever get was having it loaned out to my gallery. King was such a wanker through the whole process, though. He made me pay tremendously for it, promised all sorts of protections, stipulations, bent over backwards, jumped through hoops. It was humiliating. And then after finally signing off, he told me he would make sure my gallery would fail. All with a smile. Afterwards, I learned he bought the entire bloody building and was planning on tearing the whole thing down to convert into luxury flats. I found my motivation then.”

“Revenge,” Eggsy says.

“I used a third party to contact King and pose as an interested buyer for the study at some absurd sum. He always cared more about money than art. His greed blinded him.”

“Knowing he’d try to get the painting back from you, and that you’d refuse him, contractually bound and all,” Eggsy pieces together. “But how did you know he’d hire Harry to try and steal it?”

“Have you ever heard of the term ‘social engineering’, Eggsy?”

Eggsy shrugs, shaking his head.

“I made sure Harry’s name and greatest hits were always within hearing distance. His heists always did make for fun storytelling. At parties. News stories. Gossip from the help. You hear something so often, it tends to stay in the back of your mind until you forget when and how it came to live there. When I refused to give King back his painting, he turned to the first person he could think of to get the job done.”

There’s something very cold and dangerous about Roxy. Eggsy remains frozen in her chair, feels the hairs on the back of his arms stand on end. Harry told him to be afraid of King, but he feels far, far more afraid of incurring Roxy’s wrath now.

“Then how did Harry know to come to you...unless he was working for you the whole time,” Eggsy belatedly realises.

“The plan was always to frame Charlie. Let King know even he had his weak links. Give him a taste of his own medicine, if you will,” Roxy says. “You, however, were an unexpected variable. I didn’t count on King wanting to pin it all on you. I really didn’t want you involved in any of this, Eggsy, please believe me.”

There’s true contrition in her big brown eyes, silently pleading for Eggsy to accept her apology. Vulnerability of the woman herself. “It’s okay.” He even finds himself meaning it. Though he’s just learned of a whole new terrifying side to his friend, she’s still, somehow, the same woman he knows and loves. “It sort of worked out in the end, didn’t it?”

“I was going to make sure you got out of this unscathed, but it turned out, I didn’t have to bother. Harry’s affection for you...that was also unexpected.”

“So...he really did all that, saving me, because he wanted to?” Eggsy asks.

“He changed the entire plan for you,” Roxy says. “Originally, there was supposed to be evidence of Charlie having sold the painting to my buyer. Financial transactions and the like. It would have been fairly solidly damning and untraceable. I would have paid for it with the insurance money I’d receive off its theft. The drawback was that it would have all taken time, but no one else was supposed to come to the attention of the police. Not you. Not even Harry.”

“Instead, you left the painting right in Charlie’s house. And Harry just...offered himself up to the coppers like that? Risk everything for me?”

“Our schedule had to be expedited when you came to be involved. Harry didn’t want to see you exposed to the police’s scrutiny for any longer than you had to be,” Roxy confirms. “I daresay your protection became paramount in his mind, even more than the job itself.”

Huh. Any and all doubts he ever had about Harry vanish in an instant, to be replaced by guilt and regret for ever having them to begin with.

“King must have it out for Harry after all this,” Eggsy says with more than a bit of worry.

“Oh, most certainly. But Harry’s very clever. He’ll survive. He’s been at this for a very long time.”

“Have you...have you heard from him at all?” Eggsy asks after several seconds of hesitation, ignoring the flush that heats up his cheeks by focusing on the floor he’s scuffing with his trainers.

He had waited and waited outside the station, tense and sick with anxiety. Then, at last, out Harry came, a glorious picture walking out of the Yard, tall and confident. Their eyes had met across the street. Harry had given him a little nod of acknowledgement. _It’s over now_.

Then Harry had walked on, leaving Eggsy behind. Eggsy hasn’t heard from him since.

“No.” Roxy’s look is sympathetic. “I suspect he needs to lay low for awhile. King undoubtedly has men combing the world for him as we speak. He’ll need to wait for the raging fires to burn off a bit.”

“Oh.”

Roxy smiles sadly. “You know, the safest thing he can do for you right now is to stay away. He’s stupidly noble like that, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

It’s not much consolation. He should be happy all this is behind him now, but after all the adrenaline and nerves and madness, returning to normality is even more tedious than before. Roxy still has six months on her lease before she’ll be kicked out, and she is determined to keep the gallery open until then, promising Eggsy she’d find them a new space soon. In the meantime, people still fuck up the toilets and spill drinks on the floors and leave rubbish in places when they're too fucking lazy to find a bin. Dean still drinks and smacks him and his mum about, tries to get at Eggsy’s money, gets angry when he still can’t, and smacks them around some more.

At night, he hangs out with the lads, has a few pints, goes home, sleeps, wakes up.

And does it all again.

And again.

And again....

...until one night when Eggsy walks up to the bar, cash in hand for another round, he feels a too-close presence at his side. He turns his head, and his breath catches in his throat.

“Good evening,” Harry says like he hasn’t been absent for months, tall and fit and wearing another beautiful fucking bespoke suit, all long legs and trim waist and broad as fuck shoulders. “Could I buy you your drink?”

“Nah,” Eggsy says, and this time he's the one to take Harry off guard. “Gotta give me more than that, Harry. You still owe me. For everything.” The deception. Then the truth, then the omission thereof. Then for being a self-martyring bastard. But most of all, how much he’s made Eggsy miss him, long for him, occupying his thoughts, becoming his number one wank fodder at night. How he made Eggsy’s responsible, normal, boring life unbearable.

Harry tilts his head and considers him. “What would you like?”

“For you to stick around.” Eggsy swallows. “But I know that’s impossible with King gunning for you. Don’t even know why you’re here now. Roxy’s got Hamish keeping tabs on the price of your head. Worth a lot, Harry. I’m half-worried he’ll want to claim it. Might even have a crack at you myself, yeah?”

Harry smiles. “I’d let you have it. I’d give you my head on a silver platter if you wanted to collect the money.”

“You idiot,” Eggsy says, biting the inside of his lip to keep from doing something stupid like throwing himself at the man.

“Do you mean it?” Harry asks.

“What? Taking your head?” Eggsy stares at him in horror. “Fucking hell, I was joking!”

“That you want me to stay.”

“Harry.”

Harry pins him with his too intense stare. Eggsy can’t even look away, can barely breathe. “Because I want to. For you. Because of you. But only if you want me to.”

Every time Harry gets like this, it always leaves the ground crumbling beneath his feet, making him weak-kneed and wobbly. “What about King?” Eggsy feebly asks.

“Running and hiding keeps me safe, but it’s not living,” Harry says. “I’d risk all of it to stay by your side.”

“Jesus, the way you talk sometimes. So fucking weird, you know that?”

“So say it.”

“Say what?”

“Say you want me to stay,” Harry persists. “You have to say it and mean it.”

There’s still a large part of Eggsy that don’t ever want to admit to being that vulnerable, opening himself up wide like that. It’s how you got hurt, it’s how they hurt you. But the thought of Harry walking out of his life for a second time is a blow too massive to even think about. “Stay. Please.”

Harry leans in so close, like he’s gonna kiss him, but then stops short, realising where they are, which ain’t exactly an ideal place for two blokes to have at it. “Would you like to get out of here?”

“Where at?” It’s far too early to bring Harry back to his flat again.

“I have this nice little place on Gloucester Road. It’s always been my little sanctuary in London for decades now. Very quiet, nobody knows about it. I think you’ll like it.” Harry even holds out his arm, ever the gentleman that he is.

“Yeah?” Eggsy grins. “Sounds really posh. And really expensive.”

“You’d be surprised,” Harry tells him as they walk out of the pub, arm in arm. “I got it for a steal.”


End file.
